There is a plurality of surgical gowns presently available. Each has its own distinctive advantages for the purposes for which it was designed. Many prior art gowns incorporate a one piece front, sleeves with expandable cuffs, a back which opens full length to facilitate donning and doffing. The back opening is usually located at the centre back and is closed about the wearer with a number of fastenings such as tie tapes. During fastening, these tapes may become contaminated by the unclean attendant or by contact with the wearer's underclothing or body. To ensure a completely sterile exterior surface, a full length back overflap is provided. Such a flap is kept "clean" during donning by being secured to a "clean" area at the front of the gown. Once the gown is closed at the back, the flap is then wrapped over the tie tapes, around the back of the wearer to overlap these tapes and thus enclose the contaminated area of the back and to expose along the back an exterior sterile surface.
After the surgical or operative procedure is performed the attendants assist in removal of the used gown from the wearer. After the back flap is loosened and the tie tapes untied, one of the attendants pulls the gown by the collar from beneath the chin of the wearer, forward and downward, smartly, away from the wearer. The gown, having generally expandable cuff means at the sleeve terminals, urging against the wrists of the wearer, resists total removal from the wearer until the body of the gown has been removed away from the wearer to such an extent that the sleeves of the gown have been turned inside out and are taut; whereupon, further pulling, the cuffs expand to slide over the hands and the gown is removed. This removeable action effectively turns the gown inside out.
The exterior of the gown, which during the surgical or operative procedure will have become contaminated as with patient blood, saline solution, etc., if "folded" into the interior of the removed gown so that the used gown may be rolled up conveniently with its former interior (the unsoiled surface) as the exterior and the contaminents inside. The gown is then placed in the bag for return to the laundry, without contaminating the wearer, the attendants, or the laundry staff.